What I Loved Anyway
Last night in bed I imagined
a book I would write —
Letters with My Father
it would contain all
the emails I would write him
starting tomorrow, but then
I wondered
would he write back or leave
all those things unsaid
that’s what I do
at night when I’ve eaten too much pot
when I’m shaking on the inside
can’t sleep
with all that heart pounding noise
I write beginning
to all the endings
that were never
true
Today I opened
my email to find my father
had heard me this time
when I hadn’t said a thing
he wrote to me first
not in his own words
but a quote to live by:
Try to learn to breathe deeply,
really to taste food when you eat,
and when you sleep, really to sleep.
Try as much as possible to be wholly alive
with all your might, and when you get angry,
get good and angry, and when you laugh,
laugh like hell. Try to be alive.
You will be dead
soon enough. — William Saroyan
I wonder
will I write back or leave
all those things unsaid
Is this a true ending
to all those beginnings
I wrote so long ago?
Perhaps I will begin
by sending him a Haiku:
red banana seat
bike, the surprise you brought me
after you left us
I will call it: “What I Loved Anyway”
Samantha Wallen, MFA is a poet, writer, book coach, Founder of Write In Power.
